


attend the bones

by kingandqueeninthenorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 01:03:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingandqueeninthenorth/pseuds/kingandqueeninthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their hands fall together and their fingers twine. It becomes hard for Sansa to tell where she ends and Robb begins. Two halves of a whole, as if they had been one all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	attend the bones

Robb is away at university when their father dies.

Sansa tries to be of use to her mother, but Rickon runs from her and Bran has questions she can’t answer. Arya won’t even speak to her. She locked herself in her room, holding in her sorrow with a heavy heart. Robb was always so much better at wrangling Bran and Rickon while staying in their good graces and he was more patient with Arya than Sansa could ever be.  

“It would be easier if Robb were here,” her mother says softly as she stares at her hands. Her cheeks are streaked with dry tears, her throat raw from crying. Sansa knows she is right.

No one can fill the hole that their father left behind, but Robb is the only one that comes close.

\---

Sansa puts on a black dress because that’s what she is supposed to do. She brushes her long auburn her and tries to twist it into a respectable hairstyle, but she finds herself thinking of the casket and her father and cold skin and last wishes.

She holds in her tears because her mother can’t. She slams the hair brush down on her dresser just a little too hard and feels her eyes burning with tears. Sansa blinks them away as quickly as she can, and when she looks at her reflection in the mirror for the last time, she sees Robb standing beside her.

The tears can’t be stopped then, and she turns and throws her arms around his neck. He rubs his hand up and down her back while the other smoothes her hair. Tears run down her face and she presses herself against her brother, feeling as though she may dissolve into him at any moment.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she chokes out.

“I wanted to come sooner,” he says gently.

She threads her fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck, the way she has a thousand times before when he took her in his arms. Robb is the only thing she is sure of. _Robb is always there for me. Robb always comes._ Her tears fall onto is black dress shirt, leaving tiny wet marks.

She pulls away and laughs uneasily as she wipes her tears. “I’m staining your shirt.”

“Don’t cry, Sansa,” he whispers as he runs a thumb along her bottom lashes where her tears collect.

She shakes her hands out nervously. “I’m a mess, I know.”

“You’re lovely,” he assures, combing her hair with his fingers. “It’s longer than when I saw you last.”

She thinks of the last time they saw each other and her cheeks flush.

If he notices, he doesn’t show it.

“It looks dreadful. I was trying to put it up,” she murmurs, glancing at herself in the mirror over her shoulder.

“I could give it a try,” he offers. “If you’re willing to risk it being crooked.”

She nods and he wraps hands about her hair, pulling it back into a low ponytail, which is probably the extent of his hair styling ability. He pats down the stray hairs and turns her back to the mirror, where she gives him a wordless nod of approval.

Robb is the only thing she is sure of.

\---

It was just three months ago, at the start of yet another fall semester, just before he left again. He was always leaving her, it seemed, but he always came back. On extended weekend stays and holidays, he spent the day with friends and family, and spent the nights with her.

 “This must stop,” he had said as he sat up and pulled away from her, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what we’re doing.”

 _Neither do I,_ she thought to herself, acutely aware of her brother’s naked body and the still slick wetness  between her legs. _It doesn’t mean I want to stop._

“I shouldn’t come home so often,” he said with his back to her. “It would help.”

“Help what? Help who?” She hated the sound of her voice, so demanding and selfish in her own ears. “Who are you trying to convince?”

He had said nothing.

\---

Rickon wails as Catelyn attempts to put him in his dress clothes. He cries for father and fights off her hands and does his best to escape her altogether. Her mother is nearly in tears herself when Robb steps in, sure and steady hands ready to coax Rickon into compliance.

He succeeds and Sansa watches as Catelyn sobs into her son’s shoulder. Robb is tender and loving; his composure never falters. Robb is strong when the rest of them can’t be, and Sansa can’t help but think that all the crying on his shoulder must be exhausting.

\---

They lower the casket, but Sansa doesn’t cry. She holds Robb’s hand so tightly that she leaves crescent shaped indentions in his skin. She whispers apologies but he tells her he doesn’t mind.

\---

Rickon falls asleep on the ride home and Robb lifts him out of the car with ease, offering to put him to bed. Catelyn nods in agreement and Sansa unlocks the door to the house, following Robb to Rickon’s room.

She watches him put their youngest sibling to bed. Robb sits on the edge and tucks the blankets in around him with care, doing his best not to disturb his slumber.

Rickon stirs despite Robb’s best efforts, his eyes fluttering. He looks between Robb and Sansa in quiet contemplation. “Dad is never coming home,” he whispers in a sleepy voice. It is both a statement and a question, and Sansa can feel the tears burning in her eyes again.

Robb doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

Rickon blinks bleary eyes at them both and nods, accepting. He rolls over and draws the blankets up to his nose, closing his eyes once again.

Only after they’ve put him to bed, when she is alone with Robb outside of Rickon’s room, does she feel as though her father is really gone. The loss of him hits her hard in the stomach, bile rising in her throat. Her back is pressed to the wall, her head resting against it, waiting for the house to swallow her. It would be easier that way.

\---

She’s supposed to be asleep when she creeps into the dim hallway, listening to her brother and mother’s hushed voices in the kitchen.

Robb’s voice is barely above a whisper. “I don’t see the logic in leaving you when you need me most. Father is gone and you need help. You have four children to raise, and you cannot do it alone.” His tone is so much like their father’s. He is stern and solid, but loving and concerned for family above all else.

“Four children? I have five, which you seem to have forgotten. You’re a child yourself, Robb. You have no business raising your siblings.”

“I could take time off. A year or more.”

Her mother’s voice grows louder in agitation. “Absolutely not. I won’t hear of derailing your future.”

“Keep your voice down, mother. You’ll wake Rickon,” her brother says softly.

“Have you thought of Sansa? I rarely see her cry, but I can hear it after she’s gone to bed. She’s trying to be brave. She needs to get away, and so do you.”

“Sansa is strong. I can’t imagine her wanting to leave right now.”

“She does as you do. She’s strong because you are. If you could spend some time away, away from everything, then maybe you could both be weak for awhile.” She pauses. “You can’t be brave all the time.”

“Mother…”

“You’ll go, and you will take Sansa with you. I won’t have you here, acting as their father and taking on all the family’s burdens.”

It is a long time before Robb speaks. “For Sansa, then.”

\---

Days pass, and she waits for Robb to propose the trip. She imagines he will say it was his idea. He will say they need some time away. He will say that Jon needs them. She allows herself to imagine that he will say that they need some time alone together, but that is a little more than a dream.

She is willing to pretend that her mother had not forced it on him, if it meant that she could have another taste of what she had three months ago.

There is a light knock at her door one night. She sits up, startled. “Come in,” she says uneasily.

The door opens and Robb walks in, shutting it behind him. “I thought you may be sleeping.”

She shakes her head.

He sits at the far end of the bed, looking at his hands. It feels as though the walls are closing in when Robb finally speaks. “Mother thinks we should go visit Jon.”

She thinks of her half brother, away at school. His own education is much more rigorous, allowing for few visits home. He couldn’t even attend his own father’s funeral. She wills herself to sound convincing and surprised. “Leave? Now?”

He nods solemnly. “She never bore much love for him, but he was still her husband’s son. His grief is our grief.”

Sansa can’t think of anything to say.

“I think she wants to make it easier on us. A trip to take our mind off things.”

There is a long silence and then she says, “Okay.”

\---

She tells Bran and Rickon that they won’t be gone long. She tries to say goodbye to Arya, but she locks herself in her room. Sansa stands outside, tapping lightly, making excuses and trying to explain and wondering if her sister will ever smile again.

“Just go,” Arya says from behind the door.

So she does.

\---

Five miles into the trip, Sansa can feel her mood going sour. Robb doesn’t speak except to ask if she wants anything from the gas station where he stops, and she says no.

She sits in the car, watching him pump gas. She thinks of how being alone with her must be raking on him. He spent three months away without a single trip home just to avoid her, and now he must drive her across the country.

He returns from paying, drops into his seat, and tosses her a plastic package of two tiny white cakes with lemon frosting.

\---

Miles and miles later, he rents a room at a hotel, insisting that they can’t sleep in the car. She offers to drive while he sleeps, but he won’t hear of it. He pays for a room with one bed and carries her bags up for her.

She showers and changes into her pajamas before falling back onto the bed beside him. He rolls toward her, staring at her as she looks up at the ceiling.

“Arya will never forgive us for leaving,” she says softly.

“She will,” he assures. “And she’ll forgive father for dying, in time.”

She rolls toward him then, and they are finally face to face, so close their noses may touch. She thinks of a thousand things to say. _I love you. I want you. Why did you leave me?_ She can only manage one. “I’ve missed you.”

“Sansa…”

“Do you want me to be sorry? For missing you? For wanting you?” _Or for wanting you the way I want you?_ She hates how bitter she sounds. “You’re my brother.”

He lets out a long breath and speaks slowly. “I think we both know I’ve been more than a brother to you.”

Her fingers itch to drag themselves down his chest. She thinks of Arya’s angry parting words, and of the way Bran and Rickon just can’t be soothed by her. She thinks of her half brother, and how they were never very close. “I was never very good at being a sister.”

He looks at her lips and she touches the tips of her toes to his leg, rubbing them against his skin, trying to stir him. She feels a hardness poking her hip. For a moment, she thinks he means to kiss her, but he turns his back to her instead.

\---

Sansa is terrible with directions, but Robb is worse. When the GPS takes them down a never ending road in the wrong direction, Sansa insists that they turn around and try an alternate route or at the very least, pull over.

Robb opts for the latter, and Sansa throws her door open before walking off into a grassy field by the edge of the road.

“Sansa!”

She ignores him, as he has done to her for most of their drive thus far. She can hear him approaching her from behind. He reaches for her hand but she shakes him off, feeling tears brim. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

She keeps her back to him. “This is what you wanted.”

“This is never what I wanted.”

She looks at the sun setting on the horizon and blinks back her tears. “I just want to get to Jon.”

“Come back to the car, then.”

\---

Robb is driving far too fast. She eyes him warily. He is focused, looking straight ahead. She goes back to looking out the window, and then she sees his reflection in her side mirror. His gaze is downcast, and from her peripheral vision, she can see him eyeing the gap between her thighs, where he dress has ridden up.

Her brother may not be as indifferent as he seems.

\---

In the parking lot of another hotel, she climbs out of her seat and into his. She straddles his lap and his hands find their way to her hips, his fingers sinking into her skin until she is anchored to him. She bows her head to keep from hitting the roof of the car and looks down at Robb, their eyes meeting in the dim light of the car.

Sansa catches a glimpse of uncertainty in Robb’s eyes, but he kisses her in spite of it. They break apart and he sits up, gripping her thighs and pulling her closer until there’s no space between them.

Their hands fall together and their fingers twine. It becomes hard for Sansa to tell where she ends and Robb begins. Two halves of a whole, as if they had been one all along. She stares at him for a long time, listening to the way their breathing has slowed, wanting to be sure that he wants this as much as she does.

And then he’s fumbling with his zipper and she’s hiking her skirt up over her hips. It is clumsy and cramped and awkward, but she lets out the sweetest whimper when she sinks down on him. She presses her forehead to Robb’s and they look each other in the eyes as she twists her hands in his shirt. They both exhale as she moves up again, and she finds a steady, slow rhythm.

He grips her hips, guiding her movements and groaning into her mouth as though he is licking into a flame. He presses endless kisses to the hollow at the base of her throat and her collarbone, and then buries his face into the front of her shirt, kissing the tops of her breasts. She lets out a shuddering breath, feeling her insides quicken.

She comes with a cry so loud that he clamps his hand over her mouth and grits his teeth as he finds his own release.

\---

By the time they finally reach Jon, much of his grieving is done. They discuss their father only briefly, and he says he would rather not dwell on death when he could be enjoying their company, free of ghosts.

Robb and Jon laugh and smile and talk about sports and girls and other things Sansa doesn’t care for. But she’s glad to see Robb smiling.

Sansa can see that Jon seems to have picked up on something. He watches Robb and Sansa carefully, eyeing the way he lets his hands linger on her when it comes to the simplest of touches.

He never says a thing.

\---

When they return home, Arya is sitting in the living room. She almost smiles when she sees them. Bran is beside her, reading to Rickon. It is almost as though they have traveled back in time. Sansa half expects her father to walk in and muss Arya’s hair.

He doesn’t.

But her mother is smiling and straightening pictures and asking about Jon. She talks about what they have missed and ask Robb when he plans to head back to university.

A pit forms in Sansa’s stomach.

There is more meaningless small talk and half smiles. But Sansa can see thee fissures and cracks in her family slowly sealing themselves.

\---

He slips into her room that night, whispering _I love you_ as he pushes inside her. If he’s scared of being caught, he doesn’t show it. They are quiet except for the slap of skin on skin as he takes her from behind while kissing the back of her neck.

“They’ll hear us,” Sansa whispers fretfully in between ragged breaths.

“We had best be quiet then,” he says before dragging his teeth along the notches at the top of her spine.

She doesn’t know when he’ll leave her again or when he’ll be back, but she knows he is here now. He will find his way back to her.

He always does.


End file.
